A Letter Never Sent
by LelliieTheSnake
Summary: This is my post-reichenbach head canon splurged into a letter. I wrote this continuously and from the heart. I know it is filled with sentences that don't flow and grammar that's a little shaky, but that's kind of the point.


Dear Sherlock,

I've reached a rather significant milestone in my life, the end of one chapter and beginning of a new one. Sometimes life requires you to sit and reflect before you move on, so I suppose that's what this letter is. Closure.

It's two years and eight months since you fell off the roof of St. Barts. It took me a long time to come to terms with losing you, it was certainly hard. When you're in the army and your life is a battlefield something is taken out of you, something fundamental. God knows how you did it but somehow you managed to put it back. You made me whole again, introduced me to the possibility of living a full life after the reality of what I'd seen in Afghanistan. You made me truly happy again and that is something I will forever be thankful for.

Losing you after that was difficult. I've gone over it again and again in my head but I can't figure out why you jumped. Despite what you tried to tell me I know full well you were lying on that roof Sherlock Holmes, you were never a fraud. I believe that with all my heart. I have no idea what he said to you but I will always hate Moriarty for causing you to fall. I know you wouldn't have left me and the others you cared about without a significant reason, you may have claimed to be emotionless but I saw through you quite clearly. To a large extent you loved and relished the game with that psychopath, but I wish you hadn't participated. It was cruel that his games took you away, not just from me but from the whole world. The world is a much colder place without you being brilliant. Losing someone you love is always hard, but when they have such an influence on both yourself and the world it's especially heartbreaking. It's a difficult thing to recover from.

Which bring me neatly onto why this letter is being written. It was one week after your funeral when I really started talking to Mary. I'd actually known her for quite a while, she'd been working in the pharmacists at the surgery since long before I'd started working there. It was only after you that I started talking to her. On my first day back after the break I took for the funeral I accidentally spilt coffee down her as we collided walking through a door. Certainly a memorable way to get to know someone. I offered to pay for a taxi so she could go home and change into clean clothes; and when she returned (still feeling bad) I offered to take her out and buy her a drink. She'd heard about you, it was common knowledge at the surgery that I'd taken time off due to the death of a friend. She admitted later spent the entire evening biting back the urge to ask about you. We started spending time together and after a while I did talk to her about you. She is so easy to talk to, and remains to this day the only person with whom I really opened up to about what happened. There was just something special about the way she accepted me, emotional trauma and all. She helped me through the following months and we just worked together, without really having to try.

I had been with Mary officially for exactly eighteen months when I proposed. It wasn't a surprise, we'd discussed the idea openly a few months before. It was a relief to start to finally settle down and begin a traditional family unit. I can imagine the scorn that would appear on your face at the mundane domesticity clearly. For me the whole thing was far from boring, having spent much of my life in the forces the whole thing was both exciting and comforting. Mary is no stranger to it though, having had one previous marriage. She hasn't got any children though, childcare may have been too much for me to cope with straight away while I was still in need of support myself. Who knows, maybe that will be our next adventure.

Talking of domesticity, I'm afraid I've left the flat. I moved out shortly after getting engaged, Mary's house being much bigger and owned rather than rented. I have many fond memories of that flat, leaving it was hard. I kept your skull, he now sits at mine and Mary's house, on the shelf in the spare bedroom. I still see Mrs Hudson on a regular basis, I went round the Café for tea just last week. Turns out the latest tenants have plans to move, 221B will soon be back on the market again. Enough sentimentality though, I'm sure you'd disapprove of such love of a building.

So here I am, sitting and writing to you, the night before my wedding. I've just got off the phone talking to my beautiful wife to be Bless, she's feeling a little ill, but with the stress of organising a wedding who's really that surprised? I don't know if I'll tell her about this letter, at least not yet. Who knows where this sheet of paper will end up? I might burn it, send it into heaven in a flurry of sparks, or then again maybe I'll keep it and find it again in 20 years time in a box at the back of an old cupboard. It's been a long and difficult nearly-three-years but it's finally time to move on to the next chapter of my life. I have met a woman who I love and admire and who loves and admires me back and through her I have found myself happy again. It was a struggle to lose you but life has re-found a balance with which I am content. Though I still miss you every day I am determined to forever remember you at your best, the stunningly brilliant detective and great friend with whom I shared a memorable few years. I may be moving on but you helped to bring me back to life again Sherlock Holmes, and for that I will remain forever and always in your debt.

Yours truly,

John H. Watson.


End file.
